


Viva Voce

by linman



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-03
Updated: 2012-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-30 13:35:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/332299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linman/pseuds/linman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“And as we all know,” said the Professora with her gentle dryness, “the scientific method is very quixotic.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Viva Voce

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Trobadora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trobadora/gifts).



> Written for the 2012 Winterfair Exchange, for Trobadora's prompt: "Duv Galeni making the decision to apply to the Academy, or dealing with the immediate consequences of having done so."

The auditorium where the History Department always held their public lectures was in one of the older buildings of the University. Galeni's steps made the wood floors groan and crackle, and the double carved-mullion doors with their cast-iron fittings sighed as they swung inward at his pressure, as if in lament at the attrition of their secrets.

The same sounds. The same scent of dust and the spoor of students. Galeni glanced around: an afternoon lecture didn't attract as many high Vor heads as an evening one, but there were plenty of graduate students with their lightpads, ready to take notes. Galeni chose a seat near the back, close to the aisle, and settled in unobtrusively. The History Department, he thought, would attract more of Vorbarr Sultana to hear its wisdom if they held their lectures in a hall with seats that had been reupholstered since the Time of Isolation. But the seating posed no difficulty for graduate students. Or junior professors. _Don't get comfortable_ , was Galeni's motto to himself. _This is not your last stop._

The lights on the dais came up, and the train of academics in their regalia trundled out. Everybody in the stalls rose in a prolonged scrape to their feet, including Galeni, quietly; the lead professor amiably waved them all back down. After some introductory remarks, and adjusting of vid pickups in the back, today's speaker was ushered to the lectern. She kicked down the extra step that would lift her rounded shoulders above the lectern's parapet, collected her audience with an incisive glance, and began in a clear, dry voice.

"My topic today is the evolution of liege oaths in the historical record at the end of the Time of Isolation era," she began, and half the students in the hall bent over their lightpads.

Galeni settled back in his seat, comfortable in spite of himself, and breathed an easier breath. Professora Vorthys was always easy to listen to. He wasn't sorry he'd come.

Yet.

The Time of Isolation hadn't been his period, but he'd enjoyed studying it, particularly when Professora Vorthys was teaching; she'd been kind enough to write him a recommendation for the post at Belgravia ( _a most wonderfully clear and balanced mind_ , the history department chair had quoted to Galeni from her letter), and they had corresponded briefly after his appointment.

Then everything had changed again.

"...so that by the time of Dorca Vorbarra, the status 'vassal secundus' has become a function of acceptance within Vor dynastic lines, rather than the dynastic lines arranging themselves around the oaths. On the one hand, this represents an inevitable conservatism, which tends to coalesce around the Vor family unit. On the other, due to the relative stability of family units compared to that of governmental regimes, the status also comes to be seen as technical and implicit, rather than achieved. This removed the tension from...."

In other words, Galeni thought, it used to be that you were Vor because you took an oath; now you took the oath because you were Vor.

And now, sometimes, you had to walk through fire to prove your bona fides before they would even _let_ you take an oath.

But the Professora was right, it did cut both ways in terms of stability. You had to _volunteer_ to do things like sell your lightflyer and give up your professor’s flat, cull your library to manageable size, move all the way back from the south to the capital. To allow the honorific you’d painstakingly earned be dropped from your name without ceremony, and your name itself fall like a brick on your own foot, unwieldy with its extra syllable but not, of course, the right one. Those were things you had to offer: it was only an injury if they were taken from you.

“Oaths, of course, were rarely recorded as they were spoken, but written down in family documents after the fact, so that changes in, say, an Armsman’s oath might well begin quite ahead of the official records of such a change. Therefore we cannot say with certainty what immediate effects galactic rediscovery may have had on the liege system in terms of observed forms. It would be more accurate to observe that the immediate effect of galactic contact was a sense of reflexiveness, of an awareness of the implications of one’s oath beyond the earshot of Barrayar, as evidenced by….”

And sometimes changes were announced in the record, only to be maneuvered agonizingly into their place in reality one life, one breath, one word, at a time, for a long time after the fact. Galeni was under no illusions about what this meant. He felt very old. Probably that meant he was being naif somewhere; but he couldn’t see where. It didn’t matter. All one needed was a single purpose.

Things could change as many times as they liked, if you had that.

The Professora brought her lecture to its conclusion. The students in the audience applauded politely, and everyone stood for the dismissal. Galeni smiled to himself. Professora Vorthys never failed to gauge her audience: no idle-brained Vor bore would have stuck out the paper she’d just given, but at least five of the graduate students were late getting to their feet because they were still furiously scribbling notes. Galeni drifted down the aisle, growing more diffident the closer he got to the dais, where the professors were descending the steps to mingle with the students.

He waited while others spoke to the Professora, and almost bolted twice; but just as he’d made up his mind the second time to abandon his purpose, her glance found him and an expression of cool curiosity crossed her face, and he knew he would have to speak to her.

At last they were face-to-face. The Professora squinted thoughtfully up at him.

“Dr. Galeni,” she said graciously. “I’m pleased you were able to make this lecture, though I admit I am surprised to see you here in the middle of term. I hope I see you well?”

“Very well, thank you, madame,” Galeni said with a bow. “I was in Vorbarr Sultana this week for a series of appointments, and saw you were giving a paper, so I decided to come.” He paused, and then admitted with a reluctance that surprised him: “I’ve left my position at Belgravia.”

“Oh,” she said, with a look of startled dismay. “I’m sorry—that is, I hope it was not under unpleasant circumstances. The old prejudices….”

“No,” Galeni said with a grim smile, “I suffered almost not at all for prejudices before I left.” Her look became thoughtful again; he felt sure she hadn’t missed the subtle emphasis he couldn’t help laying on the word _before_. He eyed her measuringly and then said: “I’ve applied and been accepted to the Imperial Service Academy.”

This was the point at which everyone to whom he’d given this news said: “But why?” They all said it, his colleagues, the few of those colleagues he’d called friends, his neighbors, the closed faces of the men interviewing him at the enlistment office: _But why, Dr. Galeni? Why would you throw away your whole life? But this is madness, Galeni, why would you do such a thing? Dr. Galeni, why does a Komarran academic wish to change his career?_ And a voice at the bottom layer of his mind, a voice he’d never hear again, and never fail to hear:

_But David, why?_

He’d had, ready for trotting out, the whole rationale, point by point, goal by goal. But in the end he too had said always the same thing.

_Because I want to serve._

It meant something different to every hearer, and to that secret voice it was a knife, and Galeni liked it that way. Very simple. Very effective.

The only person whose first word had not been “Why?” was, in fact, his head of department at Belgravia, who had looked at him for a long moment and then said: _And here I thought you hadn’t a quixotic bone in your body._

He waited for the Professora’s answer.

She screwed up her mouth, and fixed him with a calculating gaze. After a moment, she spoke.

“Coffee,” she said.

*

A short time later they were sipping coffee in Professora Vorthys’s office. It felt like any academic confabulation on a normal day, Galeni occupying the most comfortable of the chairs made available for students and nudging space for his cup among the stacks of flimsies and books on the table. She sat in her desk chair, with comfortable dust on the hem of her skirt and her pulled-back hair making a brave escape. He was aware of his newly-polished shoes and the attempted severity of his civilian tunic.

The Professora had not yet opened an interrogation. She seemed to be waiting for him to make the first confessional move. But Galeni didn’t work that way. It was true he’d entertained the thought of finding _one_ person to whom he could unfold—not all, but something, someone who might keep his confidence as an artifact rather than a narrative or a confession. But Professora Vorthys might not be that person. That person might not exist, and it might not be a good idea after all. Galeni sipped his coffee and said nothing.

After an amicable silence the Professora finally spoke.

“I read a month or so ago about the ruling to allow Komarrans to join the Academy,” she said slowly. “Had they made that ruling a decade ago, would you have joined then?”

Galeni paused to turn over the thought, though he already had his answer to hand. “Yes,” he said finally.

She nodded. “So, then, you had decided to content yourself with _studying_ history.” Her voice shaded the sentence up almost, but not quite, into a question.

“I suppose so, madame,” Galeni said, his very breath neutral.

“I’m not Imperial Security, boy,” she replied with a sudden half-grin. “I’ve no stake in understanding what you’re playing at.”

“Yes,” Galeni said simply, “I know.”

“I’m sure you do by now,” she said shrewdly. “I bet you had trouble explaining your proposed change of career.”

“You’ve no idea,” Galeni breathed.

The Professora chuckled.

“And Professor Vorbretten,” she said, after another sip of coffee. “What did he say?”

“He accused me of being quixotic,” Galeni told her, his mouth going wry.

“And you don’t think so?”

Galeni sighed. “No. No…it’s more in the nature of a scientific experiment, I think.”

“And as we all know,” said the Professora with her gentle dryness, “the scientific method is very quixotic.”

Galeni’s mouth moved against his will.

“Good. You have a sense of humor about it. You’ll need it, I suspect.”

He made his face exaggeratedly straight. “Nobody’s ever accused me of a sense of humor.”

“You’re very young, yet,” she said. There were valences to her pronouncement, he sensed.

“Tell that to the officers who observed my physical entrance examinations,” he said, very dryly.

“I’m sure they know it. You got through them, didn’t you?”

“Yes, madame,” he said.

“Mm.” She regarded him mildly over the rim of her cup: a gaze which he did not underestimate. “And have you anything left to prove?” she said.

“Only to myself, madame,” he said, quietly.

“Famous last words,” she said, and this time Galeni did laugh.

“It doesn’t matter in the end, though,” he said, going serious again. “If one has a single purpose, the proof takes care of itself.”

“And what is your single purpose?” He glance was both keen and gentle: he felt flensed before he even answered.

“I want to serve,” he said.

“Why?”

No, that was the wrong order. _Why?_ was supposed to be the question to which the words _I want to serve_ were the answer. _I’m not Imperial Security_ , she’d said, and it was true: unlike ImpSec, she was asking why he wanted to serve not because she disbelieved him, but because she believed him. Would his answer then be different? Was there an answer below the answer? Galeni sifted his thoughts.

_Time was, you were Vor because you took an oath, not the other way around_ , he thought, and _If you make the offering, it can’t be taken from you_ , he thought, and _The scientific method is very quixotic_ , he thought, and _You had decided to content yourself with studying_ ….

No. The answer was very simple. “I can’t bear just watching,” he said softly, “without giving myself up somehow.”

Their eyes met, and his words sank into the silence. He realized suddenly that she too was barred from certain oaths; that the path of service he’d chosen before the Academy opened to him was a well-trod path. Quixotic, indeed.

“Hold to that,” the Professora said. “Because Barrayar will not hold it for you.”

“No,” he agreed quietly.

Well. There was the artifact. And here was its resting place. She seemed to recognize that he had nothing more he needed to say, so she did nothing to disturb the silence that fell; but when he lifted his coffee for a sip and found it cold, she stretched out her hand to take the cup.

It was natural then for Galeni to rise and offer her a bow, which she reciprocated. “Thank you for the coffee,” he said. “And the conversation.”

“And thank you,” she said, “for the company.”

She ushered him out of her office and the department, took him down the lift tube (he would have taken the stairs), and took leave of him at the doors of her building.

“Thank you again, Professora,” he said, by way of farewell.

“Good luck, Duv,” she said, and for the very first time—and why this time after all these years, why now?—the name truly sounded like his own, his own name on the lips of a friend. For a brief instant his eyes prickled wet; he blinked it away.

“Thank you,” he said again, his voice husked.

He bowed to her with gentle precision, and like a man passing safely through an airlock, walked out of history into history.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks are due to hedda62 and Kivrin for beta and for coping with my usual folderol &c. :)


End file.
